CHART: TV Ratings For The NBA Finals Are The Worst In 5 Years

Through five games of the NBA Finals, the games are averaging just 15.1 million viewers per game.

That is down 10.7% from last year and down 48.0% from their peak in 1998, the final championship of the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls.

If the pattern holds, this will be the third straight year that the ratings have dropped since the Lakers-Celtics series in 2010. That series averaged 18.1 million viewers.

The good news for the NBA is that the last two games both topped 16 million viewers (16.2 for game 4, 16.3 for game 5). And that number will almost certainly go up in game six and a potential game seven. Still, it is unlikely that the series will surpass last year’s average of 16.9 million viewers…